Trafigura, Twitter and public interest

Your excellent editorial (14 October) missed one essential point about the so-called super-injunction to which you were subject: the order was unlawful.

The courts are public authorities under the Human Rights Act. A court must exercise its remedial jurisdiction in a manner compatible with convention rights. In cases such as yours a court must reconcile competing convention rights. On the one hand is the company's right to privacy, in the form of confidentiality, and on the other is freedom of expression, in this case the freedom of the press to report on matters of public interest, and on parliament. Reporting such matters is the essence of the watchdog role of the press in a democratic society. One would have thought that only a most compelling reason would justify a court issuing a coercive order limiting such an important right. But it is difficult to see what that justification was in Trafigura's case. Remarkably, the court went further, negating the right to freedom of expression by imposing a blanket ban. Such an extreme form of prior restraint is incompatible with Article 10, and thus unlawful.

Richard A Edwards

Principal lecturer, Bristol Law School

• It was not the battle of John Wilkes MP that gave the right for the proceedings of parliament to be published. It was a former citizen of Stockton-on-Tees, Brass Crosby. As lord mayor of London in 1771 he stood up to parliament and was sent to the Tower of London for his stand. Wilkes was around, but it was "Bold as Brass" Crosby that actually won the battle.

Cllr Suzanne Fletcher

Stockton-on-Tees

• Your coverage of the triumph for freedom of information part engineered by the Twitterati is suitably Twitteresque (Report, 14 October). Not only do I now know how the battle to safeguard our rights was fought and won online, I also know Richard Wilson likes to bake, he likes to do it in his kitchen (surprisingly) and he is partial to a bit of banana cake of a Tuesday. Truly heroic mundanity.